#valorcorrupt

        ▌ continued. Inara knows the feeling. She finishes her drink of ale — somehow, even the ale in Kirkwall seems infected with the stink of fish and stale water. She hopes they’re not adding it to the kegs.       “To be fair, your life kind of sounds like it sucks.” She meant to say something comforting. Really she did. Her lips twist into a concerned frown as she squints down into her mug, trying to watch the liquid as the light shifts. Like she’s hoping to see something. Or rather hoping not to.       “Maybe you could talk about the weather more. Does it ever… change, here?”

        hawke barks out a laugh, shaking their head slightly as they look aside to the warden. inara is not wrong: their life does kind of sound like it sucks. even now that they have an estate in hightown, things aren't exactly great in other ways.

       “most people seem to see the mansion and assume i have it made—right up until i start explaining what i had to do to get there.”

        they aren't really looking for a comforting word, exactly. gazing down into their mug, hawke swirls the last dregs of ale around and then tosses it back, a grimace marring their features as they set it back down.

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he might play online chess or something like that when he first gets a phone that can do that, but he discards it pretty quickly. he enjoys socializing a lot but finds the distance imposed by online spaces to detract from that too much. he'd rather gamble or argue or whatever in person without the distraction.

that said, assuming he needs it for work, he'd still keep his phone. he'd start using cellular devices (the old, clunky kind) fairly early on ahead of the general populace, though he keeps old technology around as back-ups for a long while as the world goes to flip phones, smart phones, etc. but he would explicitly recruit someone to deal with the technology that he doesn't wanna deal with, especially as it becomes a greater security risk. he'd want to understand it but once he feels like he's learned about it he doesn't want to actually work with it much.

anyways, he absolutely buys people's data on the dark web or whatever. priest of dirthamen gunna dirthamen

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Sacred Romantic Prompts | @valorcorrupt / @howetragic

"I stopped when you called, didn't I?"

They were close, enough space for either one to close in, or carefully withdraw. It would only need for one of them to make the move first. Her chin tilted just so, not quite outright challenging him to try. A subtle, perhaps even subconscious gesture.

"Whatever could be so important to call me over?"

The tone in her voice added to the gesture, a playful sort of undertone to the teasing, furthering the dare to follow up. To say anything. To close the gap, or dare say reach out to touch her. Anything to show this delicate pursuit...

He feels the defense come up as she laughs, but there's something about it - the stuttered breath, the stuttered movements she makes - that immediately disrupts any smart comment he might have made back.

She had waited for him, too.

He'd spent so long waiting for her that he hadn't even considered whether she might feel the same way. That she'd been on the other side, doing the same thing.

"You waited?" he asks, though his voice comes out quieter and more strained than he means to. "Inara… How could I? We both - I kept thinking if you came, if you'd just… We'd find something. You'd have something. Some way out that wasn't - "

Maker, he'd been stupid. "I know that's not reasonable. But you couldn't expect me, either."

He feels her press further against him and wraps his arm more tightly around her.

"It could have been something like 'Does my snoring bother you?' or 'Would you still love me if I were a mabari?'" he jokes, his tone light for a moment. Truthfully, however, his question had dissipated with any urgency as soon as she'd snuggled closer to him and entwined their fingers. It didn't much matter anymore, just the feeling of her against him.

He'd never be the sort of man to tell a woman that she would look better with a smile on her face, but sometimes he wondered if this particular Warden had smiled for years. Inara had seen a lot of ugly, but so had just about everyone these days, even if they hadn't slain an Archdemon, and Dorian looked at her with a slightly raised brow.

Those would be two different quests, to be honest. The one where he's most uncomfortable is certainly having to deal with the dwarven politics. It's one he deals with knowing he might have to handle whomever is king further in the future, and that feels like its unfair or taking advantage. It also doesn't help that he's uncomfortable with politics anyway, so them sticking their nose into who leads a completely different place and then having to act like they know best is a huge no-no on his comfort scale. Alistair is at least glad that the Warden is the one who makes all the larger decisions in this case, but it still unnerves him that he's part of this process of choosing sides in a political battle for which they only have a small stake and which affects a huge mass of people - the dwarves - in a way they'll never understand. As king he's sure to watch this carefully, making sure to maintain a proper relationship with the ruler of Orzammar so it doesn't look like they chose a political seat for solely their own benefit (even if they did).

Whereas the one where he's most afraid ends up being when they're stuck in the Fade. That's not somewhere people are supposed to be fully, and while he's not a terribly devout person in terms of religion he still carries it fairly close to his heart and that tells him this is wrong. It's only made worse when he's so thoroughly fooled by the illusions presented to him - illusions he should have easily seen through given his tendency to never believe anything good ever happens to him. Which makes it all the more alarming how badly he fell for it and what it means for just how desperately he wants to be happy. For a demon to see into his mind so easily and manipulate him so thoroughly - it has so many implications and forces so many realizations that when they're finally free Alistair is terrified of addressing them. Among these, of course, are his own fears of his mental fortitude and being able to stand up for himself or against others, but also the more political implications of this is what they do to mages on a regular basis and what did all of these mages and templars go through. It's terrifying to him.